Twice a year, getting up early on Saturday to go to the doctor is a popular activity with Vicksburg teens — the athletes, anyway.

For the past two weekends, athletes have stood in lines snaked through the hallways at River Region Medical Center, curving around the cafeteria and doubling back near the entrance.

The students were there for school sports physicals, offered free by River Region and required by public schools.

The line moves fairly fast as a crew of health professionals that included sports physicians and internists, a nurse practitioner, physical therapists and nurses checks each student.

“This is all pro bono work,” said Dr. Dan Dare, sports medicine and orthopedic physician. The usual cost of an exam in the doctor’s office would be about $50 to $75, he said. Others who participated on the two Saturdays were Dr. William Porter, also a sports medicine and orthpedic physician; Dr. James Beckson, an internist; and Dr. John David Fagan, a urologist. The crew stays until the last child has been checked, often around noon or 1 p.m.

“It’s great,” said Gary Lee, who arrived with his son Darius Kendrick around 7:15 a.m. and waited in line about an hour and a half for the exam. The two said they did not mind getting up early and appreciated being able to save the cost of a doctor’s appointment.

Darius, 14, is a four-sport athlete, running track and playing baseball, football and basketball. He maintains a 3.4 grade point average at VJHS.

In 2008, about 2,100 sports physicals were given to local athletes, Dare said.

“We handle a lot of kids,” Dare said. “It’s kind of like a production line, with different people checking the kids for different things.” Students are checked for blood pressure, heart rate and other vital signs, eyes, lungs, abdomen, extremities like knees and ankles and other bone and joint function. “It’s a total body checkup,” though without lab work, he said.

Students are required to fill out and take with them a medical form that includes family history as well as their own. The doctors need to know if an athlete has had any sports injuries or has recently had an illness such as mononucleosis, which enlarges the spleen and rules out contact sports for a time, Dare said. They also check for allergies — to bee stings, for example — and whether there is a history of asthma or other breathing trouble during strenuous exercise.

About 99 percent of the kids pass the exams and are cleared to play sports for another year.

“If they don’t pass we send them to their primary care physician to be checked out,” he said. “Most that don’t pass have really high blood pressure. Generally, their pediatricians can treat the hypertension and then sign off on them.”

“It’s a great service,” said Arlen Cooper, sipping coffee in the hospital cafeteria while her daughter Cortni Cooper, a 16-year-old VHS junior, was checked out. It was the fifth year for Cortni, who runs track and plays basketball.

Teenage athletes get injured at about the same rate as professional athletes, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Injuries to bones that are not fully mature can be more serious in the younger players, however. What might cause a strain in an adult can result in stress fracture or damage to still-growing bones.

The American Academy of Pediatrics endorses sports physicals, as long as they do not take the place of annual well-child checkups, which more thoroughly evaluate the child, his current physical condition and activities affecting his health, including eating habits and tobacco and alcohol use.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 7.2 million U.S. youngsters played high school sports in the 2005-2006 school year.

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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com